Global InformationEnhanced community quarantine in Luzon information
| Enhanced community quarantine in Luzon | |
|---|---|
| Part of COVID-19 community quarantines in the Philippines | |
(clockwise from top)
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| Date |
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| Location | Luzon, Philippines, including its associated islands[e] |
| Caused by | COVID-19 pandemic in the Philippines |
| Goals | To contain the COVID-19 pandemic in Luzon. |
| Methods | Checkpoints, banning of public events, business and school closures, social distancing, among others. |
| Resulted in |
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The enhanced community quarantine in Luzon was a series of stay-at-home orders and cordon sanitaire measures implemented by the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) on the island of Luzon and its associated islands. It is part of the COVID-19 community quarantines in the Philippines, a larger scale of COVID-19 containment measures with varying degrees of strictness. The "enhanced community quarantine" (ECQ) is the strictest of these measures and is effectively a total lockdown.
There were three instances of the ECQ being implemented in Luzon. The first ECQ and first MECQ were implemented between March 17 and May 31, 2020. This was announced on March 16, two days after the government of the Philippines under Rodrigo Duterte placed Metro Manila under a "community quarantine" on March 14. It was implemented throughout Luzon from March 17 until May 15, and remained in areas with a moderate to high risk of infection until May 31. New degrees such as "modified enhanced community quarantine" (MECQ) and "general community quarantine" (GCQ) were introduced by the IATF-EID during the month of May as easing restrictions commenced, until all restrictions under ECQ and MECQ were downgraded to GCQ and "modified general community quarantine" (MGCQ) on June 1.
After two months of a relaxed GCQ status, a second MECQ was reimplemented in Metro Manila and its immediate surrounding provinces on August 4 and was lifted on August 18. Finally, on January 24, 2021, a second ECQ was restored in Tabuk while an MECQ was raised in four more municipalities in Kalinga. It was lifted on February 15. Due to a recent spike in COVID cases, especially in the Greater Manila Area, a third ECQ was reimplemented for the Holy Week starting on March 29 until April 4, which has since been extended until April 11, 2021.
The ECQ affected around 57 million people in Luzon during its peak. It also resulted in the mobilization of the national and local governments, with the Bayanihan to Heal as One Act passed to combat the epidemic. The effectiveness of the ECQ implementation was noted by a study made by the University of the Philippines, although there were also several documented cases of violations of ECQ regulations. Authorities then pushed for stricter enforcement, which in turn raised concerns of human rights violations.
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